The Legend of Storybrooke Bay
by RoseForEverAfter
Summary: After escaping from the latest in a string of awful foster homes, Emma Swan, a strange boy, and a dragon named Elliot make their way to the town of Storybrooke, Maine. Minor crossover with Pete's Dragon.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This was an idea that just would not leave. Playing fast and loose with the time-space continuum, but hey, fanfiction doesn't have to be 100% logical to be entertaining. For extra effect, look up the song "The Happiest Home in these Hills" from the movie to go with this chapter. Also, if anyone has a suggestion for a better title, please by all means tell me, I really don't like this one.

"Dammit Baelfire, hurry up, I can hear them coming!" Emma screeched quietly from her perch on a leaf shrouded branch.

The older boy scurried up the trunk to take the spot behind the girl. A few moments later, the lumbering Lena Gogan and her equally repugnant husband and sons entered the clearing below them.

"They had to have gone this way!"

"Hurry up you fools! Social services will never give us another kid if they find out we lost this one, and you two will have to do all the work yourselves!".

Lena screwed up her face into a horrible parody of a homey smile that Emma could see even from the treetop. "Sweetie, please come back home, we're not angry with you. The boys will do your work from now on, and I'll bake you cake and let you watch TV! We'll be tha happiest family in these hills!"

Emma rolls her eyes visibly, and mouths in Baelfire's direction "Yeah like I haven't heard that one before".

When her sickeningly sweet words receive no response, Lena's face melts back into its usual sour expression.

"Idiots! Hurry up and find them! They don't know about the boy, we can hide him if come sniffing around about the girl again!".

Emma reaches behind her to grip Baelfire's arm. The Gogan's wont be finding either of them if she can help it.

She turns to the green scaled, pink haired dragon currently crouched and cloaked below the tree.

"This is all your fault you know Elliot."

Emma had been in some awful foster homes before, but her three years with the Gogan's had taken the cake.

It was bad enough that the area they lived in was so small it wasn't even in parenthesis on the map. Bad enough that anything resembling civilization was a truck ride away. Bad enough that the woods surrounding their home frightened her a little.

It was worse that the couple's two natural sons were horrible, mean idiots who were lucky they could manage to dress themselves. Worse that none of her usual acting out, stealing and fighting, had seemed to work out here. Worse that the entire family's constant fighting had left Emma wondering how on earth they had gotten approved by social services. Worse even to the fact that they all treat her as if she's lower than the gum stuck to the bottom of their shoes.

The absolute worst part of Emma's life with the Gogan's was the understanding that the first people in her life who had ever sincerely wanted her to live with them did so because they wanted free labor.

The family owned several chickens, two large hogs, and had a very large garden. Not that anyone there could be bothered to collect eggs, feed the pigs, or weed the garden. Or mop, wash dishes, or even cook. During her time there, Emma had begun to understand how Cinderella must have felt.

The work was hard and long, and the Gogan's idea of how to feed the child working for them had generally been the leftovers of whatever it was they had made her cook for them. Sometimes this was a whole bowl of soup, sometimes a mere crust of bread. Emma had always been small for her age, but now at nearly fourteen years old, she was downright diminutive. Her growling stomach had often kept her up at night, and one morning in school she had passed out. Social workers had come after that, and Lena had scrubbed the house for herself for once, and put on her sickeningly sweet concerned face, and they had gone away. Emma had been pulled out of school after the incident, supposedly to be homeschooled. Homeschool it turned out, meant the Gogan's somehow finding even more work for her.

She was so hungry, that some days when working in the garden, she would have sworn she saw a big green dragon flying about the forest. But then she came to her senses.

One day when she's out pruning the tomatoes, she sees a boy stumble out of the trees, and come towards the house. He's slightly older than her, scruffy and dressed in dirty, odd-looking clothes. He also looks nearly as hungry as she feels. Emma opens her mouth, tries to tell him to go back, that there's nothing good this way for him, but nothing will come out, and Lena, coming out to order her to hurry up, spies him as well.

Lena's sugary smile, the one Emma has come to view as demonic, makes its way onto her face when she sees him, and she whispers "looks like there will be a new member of the family soon" to Emma.

Lena insists that Emma give the boy the last bowl of soup that night. The boy- who says his name is Baelfire, whatever kind of a name THAT is- gobbles it down as though he hasn't eaten in a week. He seems oddly fascinated by his surroundings, the stove and oven, and the TV and radio. Emma's growling stomach does not make her charitable, and she suspects he might be slow.

This peaks when the two are shooed off to bed. Emma's "bed" is really just a mattress and some blankets in the corner of the living room. and her stomach is empty, and she really does not appreciate having to share it.

When Bae moves to lay down beside her, she kicks him.

"What?"

"Turn around! Stick your feet up here!"

"Why?"

"Just do it ok?" How can he not understand? Lena will probably insist she call him brother, but she knows he's not.

Bae turns out to be a fitful sleeper too, tossing and turning and hogging the blankets.

Emma wants to ask him a million things, what on earth is the deal with his clothes, why he acts like he's never seen a plug before, why he seems so resigned to staying with a horrible family, but when he starts talking in his sleep, "Papa, papa no, not again, not this time" she keeps her mouth shut. She feels for him. At least the first time. The second time it wakes her up so she knees him in the side to shut him up.

As things go, it turns out Baelfire isn't bad company. He's certainly better at household chores than her. And now she has someone to talk to other than the chickens.

And the first time he falls in the hogpen trying to stand on the fence post while pouring the slop, is hilarious. And Emma has had little enough to laugh about in her life.

She spills her guts to him. She tells him about all the awful foster homes she had been in before this. She tells him that she's never had friends, no one ever seemed to like her. She tells him about the fights she used to get in all the time, over things that seem so incredibly stupid now. She even tells him about the hobby of stealing things she had developed. She might not have many opportunities to practice out here, but stealing a few slices of bread from the kitchen when everyones distracted by their own fighting is really all she wants now.

And Bae turns out to be an incredible storyteller. She doesn't ask where he's heard all these, because she's not so sure he can read, but he knows a lot of them, and they all flow from his mouth as easy as if he'd been there.

Bae's stories are bizarre. They're like fairy tales, magic and monsters, but he speaks as though these these were as ordinary as the Gogan's spotted hogs.

They're not as pretty as the stories she knows either. Magic, it seems, only leading to hurt, fantastical creatures as likely as humans to be cruel. And very few happily ever afters.

But if Emma understands anything, it's that humans often suck.

One day they're out in the garden digging up carrots. Bae's telling her a story about a lost brother and sister, when suddenly he stops, his mouth agape, staring off into the trees.

"I didn't know there were dragons in this land!"

"Dragons?" Emma doesn't even look up from the carrot bed "Dragons don't exist, all of your stories must have fried your brain"

"No, really, look!" Bae grabs her shoulder and turns her around, pointing to the meadow's edge.

And sure enough, the flying green and pink monstrosity is there, fluttering about the treetops

"Oh him. Yeah, that just means we've been out here too long, come on, once we steal something from the kitchen and drink from the hose he'll be gone".

Bae doesn't want to stop talking about it, but a good spray from the hose gets him out of it. He's never seen a hose either, and teaching him about it is great fun. Even though they get stuck eating their supper (two slices of bread and a single cup of gravy) outside for coming in soaking wet with only one basket of carrots.

When they're getting into bed later that night Bae stays at the window staring out.

"Do you see a unicorn outside now?"

Emma's voice is dripping with sarcasm- she can't believe he's still on this- but Bae doesn't even break his gaze.

"No, just the same dragon as before"

Emma's rolls here eyes. "Is he standing guard over a cave full of jewels too?"

"No, he's just hanging out under the trees...it almost looks like he's dancing"

She rolls her eyes even harder and stretches out on the mattress, and Bae reaches out and pulls her up and out to the window.

And yeah, he's still out there. Now he's lumbering around on the ground under the trees. He's much fatter than Emma originally noticed, and his spinning and stepping looks downright comical. While the two are watching him, he stretches out on the ground, and begins to snore so powerfully the leaves in the tree above him are disturbed.

Emma's mouth has formed a perfect "O", her brain seems to have become stuck in neutral, and so out her mouth falls the only thing that seems appropriate: "Huh".

"Papa used to tell stories of dragons in the days of old. Fearsome creatures that guarded great treasures and kidnapped maidens. Slender flying creatures from other lands said to bring wisdom and great fortune. He...never spoke of any that could dance".

Emma forces herself to move again. She pushes herself away from the window back to the mattress.

"Well...I guess he'll still be there in the morning." She's trying not to say "And maybe by then we'll have stopped hallucinating".

After she manages to drag Bae away from the window and back to bed, they both lay awake fidgiting. Finally, Emma props herself up on an elbow so she can look at him, and finally gathers the will to ask,

"You've never mentioned having a family before".

He flinches visibly, like she'd hit him (and she didn't this time, honest). "I don't want to talk about it".

But Emma can't help herself, tact has never been one of her strong points.

"Did you runaway from home?"

He winces again. "No...I was thrown away. My papa used to be a good man. He loved me, I know it. Probably still did, but he got...obsessed with the things he did. Bad things. And no matter how much I begged him, he wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop, and couldn't keep me there with him because of it".

Emma's speechless again. "What about your mother?"

"She left us both when I was little. I barely even remember her."

Emma's quiet again, then softly responds "At least they loved you once. No one's ever even wanted me."

Bae voice quiets too, and he asks "Your parents are both dead?"

Emma shakes her head "I don't know. They could be alive, dead, anything. I don't know who they were, just that they left me by the side of the road. Family to family, no one ever wanted me, much less loved me. Well, no one wanted me until the Gogan's decided they wanted a servant".

At this point, Bae's set one hand idly against her wrist. It doesn't make her uncomfortable like she thinks it ought, but it is extremely distracting. She pauses, then continues "I used to dream of running away all the time. But they always go on about awful things that happen to kids who run away. I don't care anymore. I'll take my chances...but now I'm too tired most of the time to even think about it, and even town is so far away, and if anyone there saw me, they'd just take me back here, but if I saw an opportunity..."

She trails off. Its been ages since she's even let herself entertain this fantasy. She's let her and Bae's fingers entwine loosely, and its making her feel incredibly vulnerable. "If I...if I see an out...if I see a way to run, will you come with me?"

Bae's face is soft, and she wonders if this, whatever, if he feels it too, but he quickly covers it with a grin "What, you think I want to stay here? That hog has it out for me, and Willie's rock throwing arm's getting good!".

She laughs along with him, and the hopeful specter remains in Emma's head.

And yes, the dragon is still there in the morning. Emma busies herself with filling the slop troughs. She's still not entirely sure he's really there.

Bae on the other hand, approaches him. The thing is now sitting up and plucking acorns from the tree above it (Bae had once tried to eat them during a weeding session in the middle of the hottest day of the year. His retching had had Emma in hysterics). Bae picks one acorn up off the ground and tosses it into the air, as high as he can. The beast leaps for it like an eager dog for a treat, catching it in his mouth, and licking his lips. Not that he even really HAS lips.

Emma ignores their game, and moves onto to feeding the chickens. At least until a stray acorn heads in her general direction and the dragon's enormous girth topples her over into the pen.

She sits herself up, sore and covered in corn, annoyed until Bae's hand reaches out to help her up.

"Not so funny when it's you is it?"

She remains unamused until later in the morning, when Willie and Grover decide to come out and play their usual game of "throw rocks at the orphans".

Emma's pretty good at dodging by now, even with the lawn mower holding her back, but Bae is stuck pruning, and his back is an easy target. They're both lucky neither boy is good enough to aim for the head.

Emma braces herself, turning a corner of the lawn to make herself a harder target, when she notices the dragon puffing up his muzzle, and then disappearing.

A acorn flies from that corner of the year, just perfectly in the direction of Grover's head.

"Hey you hit me!"

"I did not!"

As the two brothers began wrestling on the lawn, Emma and Bae finish up and sneak back into the house, howling.

Emma decides the dragon, who Bae informs her is named Elliot, can stay after that.

They still have to keep a close eye out for any of the Gogan's, but Elliot brightens up all of their days. He can't exactly talk, but what he wants to say is obvious enough that it gets through eventually. While he can't fly very well holding either of them, he can hover quite high for a period of time long enough that they get a breathtaking view of the hills around the Gogan's farm.

One late evening, the two were banished outside for the night for burning supper. It wasn't the first time, but at least it was summer this time.

Emma is pushing the hay piles into a shape that would make a decent bed. The sun isn't completely down yet, but the moon is already huge in the sky, and the stars have begun to shine. This actually might be better than sleeping inside.

Bae's on the other end of the garden, digging up some young potatoes. He'd insisted that packed in mud and straw they would just need a tiny fire to cook them well.

"How are we going to light it, we don't have any matches"

"That's what Elliot's here for!"

Emma hadn't believed Elliot could actually breathe fire. At least until she said it outloud, and the beast let out a burp of flames toward the sky that had blazed as bright as any July fireworks. She didn't doubt anything about him after that.

When they finish digging the shallow fire pit (to smother it easily later, Bae says) and filling it with tightly twisted straw as kindling, Bae calls Elliot over.

"Think you can just get us some embers going buddy?"

Elliot nods comically, and gets down on his belly, aiming a deep breath at the pit.

Emma should have stopped him when she saw the breeze blowing some hay in his general direction. And she definitely should have spoken up when she saw his nose twitch.

In a split second, Elliot lets out the biggest sneeze Emma has ever heard, and with it, a giant blaze from his nostrils. A blaze, which is unfortunately, aimed right for the Gogan's roof.

As she watches as the thatching on the roof goes up in flames, Emma utters a few choice words that had once gotten her sent home from school.

She turns to Bae, wild-eyed, and grabs him by the shoulders.

"You said if I saw an out, you'd come. They'll be distracted for a while, but they'll blame us and you know it. But we have a head start, we can get away. Away from all of this! Are you with me?"

After a moment, Bae takes both of her hands, "I'm with you".

She turns to Elliot, "You should make yourself invisible, or they'll see where we're going. Just stay behind us".

And with that, the three run (well, two run, one flies) off into the night time woods.

Its the next morning before they feel safe enough to come down from the tree.

The road they're on is dirt, and its only by sheer luck that a tomato truck comes by with a broad enough bumper to quietly climb and hitch a ride. Its a few hours before they reach a larger highway, with a shoulder large enough to walk on, and they quietly dismount.

"Do you know where we are?" Bae asks, his face unsure and as full of confusion as he had been that first night.

"No" Emma says. "I guess we'll get where we're going at some point".

And with that, the three walk. Its nearly dark, and they're all exhausted, Emma's feet complaining loudly, and Elliot falling behind more and more, when they reach a small thatch of trees again with a road sign for the next town.

"We should stop here for the night." There's a grove, and with the go ahead, Elliot flops on the ground, and cloaks, sound asleep in a second.

Bae asks "What are we going to say when we reach town?"

"I don't know. I'm pretty good at lying. Give me the night, I'll come up with something." Emma says grimly.

Bae lay on his back on the ground, using Elliot's ample side as a pillow, And Emma takes her place beside him.

"What did the sign say this place was called anyway?"

"Storybrooke. Storybrooke Maine".


	2. Brazzle Dazzle Day

Emma awakes the next morning with the impression of Elliot's scales bored into her cheek. She blinks for a moment, unused to being awakened by anything other than the Gogan's hollering; whether at her or just in general. It takes a bit, for her to acknowledge that the events of the night before were not in fact a dream, and her, Bae, and Elliot were really sleeping in a ditch by the side of the

road miles from the Gogan's farmhouse.

She stretches out, eying the sunrise through the trees. The morning air is fresh and cool, and Emma actually feels happy.

So happy, that she wakes Bae by rolling him over and off of Elliot's stomach instead of kicking him.

"Wake up dork, we have to go into town, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse".

Bae sits up dazed, shaking his limbs loose.

"How are we going to get food, neither of us has any money".

"Don't worry, I've got ideas". A few that are even somewhat legal.

Elliot jumps up into a standing position, shaking the ground beneath Emma.

"You better make yourself invisible for this Elliot. People don't believe in dragons, and we don't know what they'll do if they see you. And try not to crush anything or set anything on fire if you can help it?"

Elliot pouts, but soon his giant green form sparkles, and then fades away.

The road into town is deserted. Even though its a (Thursday? Emma thinks) morning, there doesn't seem to be anyone driving to work.

There's a bit where the road turns sharply down a slope by a grassy hill, and they get a great view of the town. The houses, mostly small, quaint. There's a clock tower in the middle of town, but Emma can't see what time it is. And off to the east, the sea.

Emma lets out a very girlish noise she would later deny. "I've never seen the ocean before, I didn't know we were this close to the coast!".

"I've seen it" Bae says, eyes wide, "Papa and I lived near a seaport. We went into town and saw the ships leaving sometimes. It's amazing, and it's been so long"

Emma's almost bouncy now "We'll have to go down there today, It's been warm and sunny, it'll be great!"

Her stomach lets out a low, almost melancholy growl.

"After food that is, follow me, I can see main street, what I'm looking for should be there".

The town itself is like pictures Emma's seen in books, and on cheap postcards. Small, picturesque, houses with perfectly manicured lawns and gardens. Bikes out front, novelty mail boxes and lawn decorations, and even though she didn't SEE any picket fences, Emma

knew there were probably a few around.

And when they got to Main Street it was even worse. The children were all dressed so neatly. The shop's all with cutesy, tongue in cheek names like "The Pied Piper's Equipment and Lessons" and "Elf Cobbled Shoes". Emma hasn't seen a McDonalds in three years, but she remembers there being one on every corner in other towns.

"Did we just walk into a time warp or something?" She murmurs, unheard by Baelfire.

She spies her destination across a street corner. "Stay here" she tells Bae, "Lets see if they still do this".

The bakery (called the Gingerbread House, what IS IT with this town?), is small, but warm and bright, featuring a brightly colored flyer announcing "Storybrooke's Best Muffins". Walking through the door, the smells of sweet cakes, spicy cinnamon buns, and the rich, wonderful scent of baking bread hit Emma like a ton of bricks. She thinks the people on the edge of town could probably hear her

stomach.

Behind the counter is a smiling, plump woman with short hair wearing an apron.

Emma forces herself to smile, to put a little sheepishness on her face, and a little nervous bounce in her step.

"Hi, uhh...I didn't eat breakfast before I left today, and I don't have any money. My mom says you sometimes give away stuff that's about to be thrown away, if you do can I please have some?"

The woman points to a basket at the end of the case "Day old bagels. Plain, poppy seed, blueberry. Usually I charge a quarter, but" She eyes Emma's emaciated form with a motherly gaze, "Just tell people where you got em this time".

Emma sputters graciously, and grabs a couple out of the case. She's about to turn and speed back out the front door, when she's waylaid by a young girl with a round face and reddish hair, sitting at a table with a gingham tablecloth and jars on it.

"Hi! Would you like to sample my new preserves? They're all homemade"

"Paige, don't use customers to test your jalapeno blueberry mess again" The woman behind the counter reprimands.

"I didn't use jalapeno this time mom!"

Paige winks at her, hands her a small plastic cup of reddish-green goop. "It's strawberry-kiwi today. Its kind of gross to look at but its really tasty".

Emma takes the cup, with a genuine smile this time, and leaves. This might be an OK place after all, she thinks.

She speeds out back across the street, where Bae is still waiting.

"Jackpot!" She squeaks, holding the bag of bagels aloft in one hand, and the cup of jam in the other.

The jam is indeed good. Emma's never had a kiwi before, but she hardly notices the odd green tinge as she smears one bagel (they're quite dry, the jam improves this) with a generous amount.

"The baker was generous, but I can't do that too many times more, she'll wonder why I always come back there"

Bae looked at the bagel with a curious eye, then shoves half the thing in his mouth at once.

They keep walking off of Main Street, towards the beach (or at least Emma thinks this is the right direction).

Bae is looking around them. Emma thinks at first that it's just him being his usual weird self, but he's not looking at the buildings, he's looking at the people.

"Everyone's staring at us"

"What?" She jerks her head around, trying to look behind them. He's right; people are indeed giving them curious looks. It's like they've never seen two kids walking down the street before.

"Maybe they're just staring at your funny clothes".

Bae glances down at himself self consciously. Emma's old shorts and plain shirt may not exactly be the height of fashion, but she looks more ordinary than her companion, in a pair of Willy's handed down overalls, rolled and pinned at the knees. He looks like he ought be in a cartoon wearing a straw hat and wheat sticking out of his mouth, saying things like "tarnation".

"We'll have to try and do something about that later. For now, I really want to see the beach!" She says, bouncing, and speeding, belly full of bread, jam and freedom. Bae practically has to jog to keep up with her.

It's only a few miles from the center of town, where they step off the street and cross a field of weeds and uncut grass, before the ground descends into the sandy shore. Emma peels off her shoes and socks, tossing them aside carelessly, and scampers down to the waterline, letting the foam froth over her toes.

Before the Gogan's, Emma had had classmates describe vacations at the beach. Tales of sunshine and salty air and fun that were forever categorized under the heading "things that Emma would never have". Now she was going to take these memories for herself.

Her rose colored reverie is interrupted however, by Bae, overalls hitched up around his thighs, running past her into the waves, soaking her unceremoniously.

He's in the water up to his knees, and scoops up a bunch and splashes it over his face, soaking his hair (Emma thinks she should get a better look at the boys in town. It wouldn't do to have them chased out of stores for being flower children). He almost moans.

"It smells the same. Exactly the same as the way I remember".

Then he shuts his eyes, and sinks underneath the waves.

Emma's starting to get a touch worried, when the surface of the water is disturbed and Bae pops back up from the depths.

"Come here" he says, beckoning to her.

She steps forward into the water hesitatingly. She can't swim at all, has never even been in a pool. The waves are stronger than she would have thought, and the sand shifts beneath her feet.

When she reaches him, she's in the water almost up to her chest, and starting to feel like she could float away. It's not like being in a bathtub. She kicks her feet a few times, and feels her whole body suspended, cradled by the waves, before drifting slowly back down.

"Do you trust me?" Bae asks.

Emma almost stutters, but bites her tongue. "Yes".

He reaches out. "Give me your glasses". She pauses before doing so, and he tucks them into the top pocket on his overalls. The whole world around Emma is sort of blurry now, looking at things sort of feeling the same as her body feels under the waves.

"Take a deep breath and hold it, and plug your nose. I'm going to push you down under"

Emma jerks "No. You know I can't swim. I can barely stand up here".

"Don't worry, I won't let you drown. I'll keep a hold of you the whole time. If you get scared and want me to bring you back up, just start kicking, and I'll pull you back up. Open your eyes once you're under. It'll probably hurt a little at first, but its really worth it."

She still can't understand what comes over her at this moment, but she does what he says.

She sucks in the biggest breath she can, and covers her nose. Bae pushes her gently onto her belly and when the water touches her face, she squeezes her eyes shut.

She feels him push on her back, and for a terrifying moment, Emma's whole world goes dark and muted. The water is cool, and strangely blunting. The only sensation she knows is the dull warmth on her back, and the tremendous, consuming press of the sea. Her arms and legs wiggle, and though she has never learned to swim, the movements feels completely natural.

It takes her a moment to bring herself to open her eyes like Bae said to (the salt water does sting), and when she does, she is in a completely unfamiliar world.

The choppy, stormy blue of the surface is gone. Down here, as far as she can see is the purest, clearest blue. plants grow from the sea floor and sway, completely unlike in the wind. Bubbles that drift from her mouth and nose make their way to the surface, gently and gracefully, as dancers performing. Seemingly miles away, the sunlight gleams from far above, casting its light into this place,

glinting like crystal

There is a whole world down here, Emma thinks, one that no one ever really sees.

Then, almost just as soon as its began, she looses the last of her breath. Her legs kick, of their own volition, and Bae grabs her under the arms and pulls her back up into the world of the sun.

She gasps deeply, sweeping her hair back off her face, and blinking her eyes multiple times to clear them of the salt

"That...that was fucking amazing"

"Back home, whenever we went to port, all of the other kids would play chicken in the water. See who could hold their breath the longest. I could do it the longest, longer even than the older boys. Everyone used to say that it you stayed down long enough you'd see mermaids, or sea monsters"

"Did you ever?"

"See anything? No. I always wanted to. Some of the other kids said they did, but no one ever could prove it. Stories said that mermaids didn't come that close towards land often anyway." He gives her a look. "I thought you didn't believe in those kind of things?"

Emma rolls her eyes. "I clearly fell off the reality truck sometime, might as well go with the flow".

She silences his smirk by smacking him with a handful of seaweed.

"Besides," she says, looking up at the sky which has just been greatly darkened by a corpulent green mass. "The person traveling with the dragon really can't talk". Elliot hovers above the water with his arms crossed. He seems upset at being forgotten.

Bae makes it up to him by tossing him a fish.

The rest of the day passes in a salt tinged, sun soaked blur. Elliot's grace is improved by the ocean, and he seems to enjoy the sun. The patch of beach they're on is near the docks, and cut off from the larger public beach by a barnacle covered rock cliff where the Storybrooke lighthouse sits. Bae convinces Emma to climb it, and perched on a ledge, they sit and watch the ships come in.

And even though she lacks any tools, and to be honest feels a bit silly, Emma builds a pretty decent sand castle. Even if Bae insists that no real castle has a skull drawn on the side.

Its when they're digging in the sand, that Bae makes a discovery.

He holds up a small, round thing with ridges on it. A clam.

"We used to dig for these on the beach then bake them in the fire. It used to be harder cause people would dig and sell them, but I haven't seen a single fishmonger here so there's probably a ton of them!".

"If you can bake them, can't we have Elliot build a fire?" Emma's stomach is beginning to growl, the sun is low in the sky and the bagels and jelly seem a lifetime ago.

Bae shakes his head "This is just one. Takes more than that to make a meal, and I need a fork or a rake or something to find others. Besides," He glances down, ashamed, "Elliot building us a fire didn't work so well last time".

Her stomach lets out a gurgle. "Can we go back into town now then?"

And so, they brush themselves off as best they can, and reassure Elliot that they won't forget he's out here. He's taken a liking to a small cave along the rocks.

Emma pats the tufts of pink hair atop his head. "If there's anyone who knows what it means to be forgotten, its us".

The walk back into town rids them of most of the remaining dampness from the ocean, but they're still mostly covered in sand. Emma wonders if the grittiness will ever go away. A shower has never sounded nicer.

The grocery store is smaller than any Emma's ever been in. The produce area only has apples, bananas and citrus, and almost everything seems to be store brand or one Emma has never heard of. A chill is raised on Emma's neck, both from the ambient temperature of the store, and the fact that she realizes the front desk clerk can see down almost every aisle.

She's staring at the contents of the farthest aisle in the store. Canned soup, spaghetti-O's and others. Bae is perched on the end cap, looking at a magazine, functioning as a not entirely necessary, or effective, lookout. Emma is knelt down, trying to figure out which ones would be easiest to pilfer, when she has a realization. Neither her or Bae has a bag of any sort, nor clothing heavy or loose

enough to conceal a can.

Her head swims for a moment, trying to come up with a plan B, when there's a whisper from above her.

"Drop them in my bag"

The whisper comes from a girl beside Emma, with curly blonde hair. She's staring, rather nonchalantly, at the cans above her head level. Her bag, a denim backpack with a drawstring, is laying open at her feet.

Feeling a bit dazed, Emma drops three cans, chili with beans, extra hot, into the bag. The girl picks it up and slips it over her shoulder. Still looking straight ahead, she says, "Meet us out back in ten minutes. Leave first, it'll be less suspicious".

Still not entirely sure what's just happened, Emma walks straight back out from the aisle. She claps an extremely confused looking Bae on the arm, and leads him back out.

"What the hell just happened?" Bae asks when get outside, and Emma leads them both around the back of the shop, into the alley.

It's not even a real alley! There's a planter full of flowers in the middle of it!

"I'm really not sure" Behind the shop is a bunch of trash cans, and a wooden fence leading to a vacant lot.

"She said to wait". And so they do. Emma is nervous, she has no idea what the girl would want- if she'd wanted to get them in trouble, she could have just said something to a clerk. If she just wanted a scapegoat for her own theft, why bother telling them to meet out here? Its not like she could finger them for anything, when she was the one with the stuff...

Emma's mind is racing when the girl, and a dark haired boy accompanying her, appear at the corner of the alley. Now that she gets a better look, the blond girl is clearly a year or two younger than her, though about the same height. The boy is a bit younger, maybe ten. They're both thin and small, and dressed in what Emma recognizes as donation style, faded, dated and ill-fitting.

The girl tosses the cans to Emma, who responds, "Did anyone see you?"

"No, great luck for us, my backpack should have stuck out this time of year. Guess Mr. Clark wasn't paying attention"

She speaks with certainty.

It's actually Bae who voices Emma's thoughts.

"You've done this a lot?"

The girl's face twitches. "We get by".

The tension is palpable. Emma tries to gather the cans and break them away, "We'll go now I guess then..."

The girl speaks up "Go where? We don't get new people around here much. And two kids with no parents, trying to shoplift dinner? You don't have anywhere to go do you?"

Emma doesn't say a word.

The girl rolls her eyes. "Come home with us tonight. You can heat and eat your stuff and sleep on the floor. Unless you'd rather spend the night out here. No one here takes in lost lovable orphans"

Bae turns to her, waiting for agreement, eyes almost hopeful.

Emma nods. It can't be any worse than where they've been.

The girl hitches her foot into the chain link fence and hoists herself up. She turns her head to the others. "I'm Ava by the way," she points to the quiet boy behind her, "this is my brother Nicholas".

Emma hoists herself up first. Her climbing skills have faded after her years with the Gogans. The metal presses into her skin leaving

marks, but she gets herself to the top, and pushes off onto the grass.

"I'm Emma," she says. Ba's having a harder time than her scaling the fence. Maybe its harder when you're taller. And in ill-fitting overalls.

She gestures at him struggling over the top. "And that's Baelfire".

Nicholas lets out a loud snort at the name. And with that, Bae topples off the fence, landing unceremoniously and toppling forward.

Emma tosses her hands up in the air and shakes her head. "I don't know either. I think he's from another planet or something."

The path that Ava leads them is mostly barren. The buildings still have the quaint little cottage look, but are empty and unkempt.

"It's like a ghost town" Emma comments.

"A bunch of families used to live here, but the area was condemned a year or two ago. Something about faulty wiring" Ava explains as she leads them up the porch on one of the houses, a faded, peeling blue one story thing. The kitchen counters are mostly bare, except for scraps of random oddities. The table is weighed down with staples. Peanut butter, cereal, instant oatmeal. Cans of varying sizes

are in boxes on the floor.

"We used to live here, and then moved before mom got sick. The power's out this whole block. We're lucky though- for some reason no one ever turned off the water. The shower pipes are corroded though- I can show you where we take them tomorrow"

Emma winces. Neither her or Bae has bathed in a couple days and they both probably stink. And her stomach is still growling.

"How do you cook anything without power?" Emma picked up what little cooking skills she has from her stint with the Gogans. But as backwoods as their house was, it did have electricity, and a gas stove.

"We don't really cook much" Ava admits. "I mostly try to snag stuff that doesn't need it. Even things like beans are OK straight from the can once you get used to it...but..."

She leads them out the backdoor into the small yard. The grass is uncut and mostly dead. Around one of the corners, Emma is surprised to find a tiny makeshift fire pit set up.

Ava retrieves a kitchen torch and lights it. Emma jumps and Bae winces visibly.

"It's OK, I've done this a dozen times. We can't make it too big, or people would notice the smoke"

"Sorry, we just have a...poor history when it comes to fire" Bae manages to squeak out.

She tosses some dried grass and drift wood into the pit, and lights the center, and soon a solid small fire is going. Ava sets a metal grate on the top of the it, and picks up a medium sized, well worn saucepan, and takes a can opener out of it.

After pulling one of the cans of chili from her bag, she sends Nicholas in the house to put the other pilfered items away, and Emma gets a look at them. Toilet paper, toothpaste, aspirin. These two really know what they're doing. And so, throwing politeness to the wind, Emma just up and asks,

"So what happened to your parents?"

Ava doesn't even look up from pouring the can into the pan. "Our mom died last year, and we never knew our dad".

"Doesn't anyone else know you're here?" Bae asks.

"No. We knew that if anyone ever found out..."

"They'd split you up," Emma says with certainty. "And they would have. No one wants older kids, it's hard enough to get people to take even one".

Nicholas and Ava are looking at her wide-eyed, suddenly seeming much younger.

She sighs. "I've been in foster care since I was born. I don't know who my parents are or what happened to them."

Nicholas is solemn "So you two never even knew your parents?"

Emma sputters a bit before Bae answers for her, "We're not siblings. We were just staying with the same family. I had two parents once upon a time".

Nicolas blurts out "What happened?" right as Ava punches him in the shoulder and glares at him.

Bae just shakes his head "My father has problems. My mother left when I was little, and about a season ago I did too. That's just how it goes".

He doesn't want to talk about, his whole face screams that. When Nicholas looks like he's going to ask something else, Emma's stomach growls and she interrupts him, "Hey, I thought we were going to cook that chili"

The chili was a good pick. Spicy and filling, and the two cans is more than enough for all four of them. This is more of one food than Emma has had to herself for three years. By the time they finish the pot (Ava has only thin plastic bowls, so the contents burn their hands, but at least they all have clean spoons), Emma's pleasantly stuffed.

"So why'd you guys run away?" Ava asks, gauging their reactions. Emma has no problem with this one.

"We lived with a nasty hick family who made us do all the work and hardly fed us like we were in a fairytale or something."

Bae elaborates, "There was...an accident that we would have been blamed for for sure, so we just ran. Didn't know where we were going, and we just ended up here".

"What is it with this town anyway? I've never been anywhere like it, it's like it's straight from a book".

Ava's face takes on a strange expression even as she answers "Yeah, Storybrooke's pretty, but some of the people here are awful. We hardly ever get strangers here- I can't even remember getting new classmates. I think there was a man and his son who came through once, but I can't remember what happened. I'd steer clear of the mayor if I were you guys- she was really creepy when that happened".

"What do you think she'd try and kidnap us or something?" Emma asks, laughing at the idea of her, the kid no one was willing to take, being nabbed by a politician who wanted to look good for voters.

"She might" Ava says, making Emma snort.

Avoid the mayor, Emma thinks, while licking the bottom of her bowl clean. That can't be too hard. She doesn't remember how she used to not even be able to avoid the school principal.

Ava shows them her and Nicholas's stash of donated clothes. Random stuff, in plastic grocery bags. There were drop off spots around the city, Ava explained, and its not like they wouldn't eventually end up with some of this stuff anyway once it was distributed. They manage to find both her and Bae something to sleep in. Even a shirt and shorts that actually fit Bae, and Emma insists they throw out

his farmer John overalls (she'd wanted to set them on fire but didn't suggest it).

Ava shows them to the (empty) guest room, and pulls a couple of sleeping bags out of the closet.

"Thank god, I have spent far too much time sharing a bed with you" Emma says, unrolling hers under the window

"You? I'm the one who's always getting kicked".

She can't believe she lets that one slip by. The window is wide open, and the early night air is still drifting in, warm and fragrant.

"Tomorrow, if I can find a rake, we should go back down to the beach and dig up some clams. They're really easy to cook, and this way no one will have to steal anything tomorrow."

Emma tries not to laugh. She knows Bae isn't comfortable with stealing, but they're never going to get by otherwise. She'll have to teach him a thing or two. She hopes he doesn't fight it too much.

"Should we..." he trails off, thinking. "What should we do about Elliot? We can't get to the beach all the time, and other people are bound to be there. He'll get lonely. Lonely enough and he might leave".

Emma's breath catches in her throat. She doesn't want Elliot to leave either.

"We can't tell anyone" She says with certainty "Especially not around adults. I didn't even believe at first and I'm a kid. People would think we were crazy. We could end up locked up in the loony bin. Or at least sent back into the system. We can't draw too much attention to ourselves".

Bae's laying in his sleeping back, hands behind his head staring at the ceiling. He's stretched out on the other end of the room, away from the window. And for a instant, Emma actually misses him being beside her.

"Also..." he turns on his side to look at her "from now on, if people ask, just say you're my brother."

"I don't look like you at all"

"Not all brothers and sisters do. Say steps if people get nosy. You're maybe a year older than me, but you look like you're two or three years ahead. If people see us hanging around all the time, if not my brother, they'll probably think you're a...creep."

He looks hurt by this. A jolt goes through Emma's gut. It's the truth, it is. She's seen enough of this world to know. But she hadn't meant to imply that he actually was. So she changes the subject.

"Can you teach me to swim? I want to go down deeper." She grins. He doesn't quite light up again like she'd hoped, but he does smile.

"I can teach you sure, but you can only hold you're breath for so long"

"They have masks and tubes and stuff for that, someplace around here must have them" This has to be a tourist town. Probably people all over the place during the summer, buying all sorts of crap like that.

"Can we start tomorrow?" She asks a little bit more quietly.

He does grin this time, if a little held back. "Sure Emma, good night". And with that he rolls away from her.

Emma curls around a few times, trying to find a comfortable position. The moon outside her window is huge, hanging above the house across the road and illuminating the empty street. The all encompassing blue reminds Emma of the panorama under the waves, quieting and consuming. Bae starts to snore behind her, and Emma laughs.

It really hasn't been a bad day after all.


End file.
